RIM is earning a reputation as the successor to Microsoft as the "biggest loser" in smartphone sales

The most recent survey by the NPD Group on U.S. smartphone sales offered few surprises as recent winners and losers for the most part furthered their respective streaks. The winners are, of course Apple, Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG), while the losers are Canadian BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion, Ltd. (TSE:RIM). Windows Phone 7 manufacturer Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), a perennial loser, was about the only party reverse its recent trend, posting a small growth.

I. Four Out of Every Five U.S. Smartphones are an Android or an Apple

For Apple and Google, they're seeing their individual growth more or less flat-line for this year, but this growth is still substantially elevated, when compared to 2010 numbers. Google's Android market share remained at 53 percent -- the same number the NPD group reported for Q2 2011, and a significantly higher level than Jan.-Oct. 2010's ~21 percent which NPD reported last year. Likewise Apple grew from 21 percent to 29 percent.

RIM continues its humiliating fall, reaching a mere 10 percent of the U.S. market, down from a year ago when it held a quarter of it. On a quarterly basis RIM captured a miserable 8 percent of U.S. smartphone sales in Q3 2011. NPD analyst Ross Rubin, the report's author, pointed out that in the close to five years between Q2 2006 to Q3 2011, RIM has gone from owning 50 percent of the smartphone market to owning a sixth of that.

Fortune in 2009 quoted RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis as saying, "sometimes we have to put the brakes on. We’ve shown that we can handle annual 100% growth. I’m not sure we could handle more than that."

RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie may be all laughs and grins, but his company's increasingly abysmal U.S. sales outlook has given investors little to crack a smile about. [Image Source: Reuters]

Well RIM has certainly put the brakes on -- in fact it's put the vehicle in reverse and is backing up towards a cliff leaving investors yelling in the back seat.

II. Microsoft Performance is Slightly Better Than Last Time

For Microsoft the news was considerably better. Unlike RIM, which has no "plan B", Microsoft is sitting on a pile of cash (some of it from Android) and isn't afraid of throwing it at the smartphone market. And Microsoft has apparently passed on the tradition of standards bearer of the biggest losers side of the list to RIM.

While it still has a long, long ways to go to regain even a fifth of its Q2 2007 peak 25 percent market share, Microsoft did manage to reach a 2 percent market share with its Windows Phone platform -- up from 1 percent in August.

An even bigger comeback story is the performance by Google-subsidiary Motorola, who rose from 1 percent of the market in 2009, to 12.1 percent today.

Ultimately, it remains to be seen in the long run whether Microsoft and Nokia will have enough fuel left in the tank to achieve an equivalent level of comeback success as Motorola. But signs of Microsoft's general direction should become more evident by next year, Mr. Rubin says.

To its credit, RIM has always managed to drawn strong sales thanks its IT-strength software, allowing it to pinch on hardware costs and post some almost Apple-esque profits. But even that may be coming to the end. From Q1 to Q3, RIM saw its profits fall to a third of their previous levels down to $329M USD from $934M USD. A quarter or two more like that and RIM could find itself in the red.

Mr. Rubin opines, "The competitive landscape for smartphones, which has been reshaped by Apple and Google, has ultimately forced every major handset provider through a major transition. For many of them, 2012 will be a critical year in assessing how effective their responses have been."

While he did not mention it, one of the biggest smartphone stories of 2011, aside from the Nokia-Microsoft affair was Hewlett-Packard Company's (HPQ) decision to kill sales of webOS smartphones, effectively striking a death blow to the remains of Palm, Inc. -- a firm that had close to 20 years of mobile device experience and almost 10 years of smartphone sales.

The smartphone event of 2011 may have been the death of HP's ex-Palm unit, a veteran core that had stuck it out for almost 20 years. [Image Source: Gigaom]

Once viewed as the chief competitor to Apple, Palms' sales plunged prompting a 2010 fire sale to HP for $1.2B USD. From there things went from bad to worse, with HP's deteriorating management driving the struggling unit to its grave.

Where in the world is Pirks? He has been completely silent of late! I would like to listen to him defend his beloved RIM / Blackberry.

I really do not wish to see an important smartphone competitor go under, but at this point I fear it is inevitable. I give them a maximum of 2 years at this point, at which time they will either be bought out or fold completely.

Pirks, if you're out there, you have ardently defended RIM for years now even as they steadily lose market share. Curious to know your feelings on the subject?

What? You want me to reply to a dumb illiterate reporter like Mick who saw RIM handsets only on pictures and thinks BB7 is the next version of the QNX derived smartphone OS? Are you even serious? Jeez, I can't believe people could be THAT dumb. Even dumber than cheesy bitch. And that means a lot!

Well, I'm surprised why retro's not trolling RIM here too. Perhaps he is also ashamed to reply to the level of dumbness and illiteracy that Mick demonstrated here by calling BB7 "the next QNX derived BB OS". I say, Mick is even beyond dumb, I don't know how to call this, super dumb maybe? Seems like he trolls RIM because he's being paid by some Android company like Google or something. He can't be just doing this because of pure stupidity, no way!